In recent years the rising urgent concern of the new generations has undeniably been climate change. When the EU Green Deal was introduced last year, it appeared as though the European Union was taking the matter into their own hands and was ready to lead the climate transition. The Green Deal is a bold plan, initiated by the European Commission in late 2019 and putting EU countries on the path to reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The plan comprises a set of green policies that envisage a cumulative investment of more than one trillion euros over the next ten years. Within each policy, the European Commission has set ambitious environmental goals along with several challenging plans within each industry.
Given the Green Deal’s ambitious targets and financing, it sounds almost utopic in our consumption-driven society and carbon-intensive economy.
At first glance, the European Union appears to be on the right track. In January 2020, it presented the European Green Deal Investment Plan – to mobilize more than 500 billion directly from the EU budget for the sustainable transition – which has been subsequently approved by the European Parliament last Friday. In addition, the Climate Law was proposed to the European Commission in March 2020 and it was decided in October that the European members are legally bound to achieve the net-zero emissions goal by 2050.
The agricultural sector is essential to the sustainable transition and is therefore one of the main focuses of the EU Green Deal. To that extent, the European Union has proposed two different initiatives to tackle biodiversity and nutrient loss.
In March 2020, the EU Biodiversity Strategy was introduced to protect the planet’s natural resources. EU funds and national and private funding are included in this strategy and will start being unlocked by 2023 (20 billion euros per year for biodiversity). The EU also plans to plant an additional three billion trees by 2030.
In addition, the EU introduced the “Farm to fork strategy” to create a fair, healthy, and sustainable food system. It includes extensive development of organic farming methods, consisting of reducing the usage of artificial fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, focusing on healthy products, and implementing nutrient cycling involving livestock and composts. The EU will implement diverse measures to reduce fertilizer usage by at least 20% and diminish by 50% the use of chemicals and hazardous pesticides. To ensure that these objectives are reached, the European Commission plans to make the targets legally binding in 2023, in order for the Member states to achieve by 2030.
When the “Farm to fork strategy” was presented, the role of CAP was emphasized as essential to accomplishing the 2030 agricultural objectives. As a reminder, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was created in 1962 with an initial goal of providing food at an affordable price to all European citizens. Since then, it has evolved to playing a role in the sustainable food transition and protecting biodiversity. Therefore, as it was expected to improve current environmental amendments, on the 20th October environmentalists eagerly awaited the CAP reform vote. Ultimately, food lobbies such as pesticides’ producer Copa-Cogeca, swung the vote to their favor, loosening the rules and environmental requirements instead. As Harriet Bradley, the European Agriculture & Bioenergy Policy Officer pointed out in a recent tweet: “This is why agriculture policy looks like it does - the Agri ministers start every session with a private session with the big ag lobby. We have been asking for a decade to have a non-economic perspective represented, but they all refuse”. For instance, an amendment still favors the largest players in the agriculture sector: the financial aids from the CAP are calculated based on land size, and will not take into account the implementation of a more sustainable production system. One of the cornerstones of the EU Green deal is that no one should be left behind in the sustainable transition of the European economy. Another new amendment added a threshold on the financial aid available. It concerns countries that are more reliant on carbon-intensive industries and might need additional investments to protect their biodiversity, and improve their food supply chain. Overall, the newly voted amendments appear out of the scope of the EU Green Deal.
Even with the very ambitious targets, the “Farm to Fork strategy” and the EU Biodiversity strategy remain lofty goals and do not enforce enough sustainable actions for European agriculture. Given the recent decision for the CAP reform, European citizens are right to wonder if the sustainability goals for the biodiversity and the food supply chain can be reached by 2050. Nevertheless, the European Green Deal actually provides proper cost-effective, and value-adding concepts for businesses to thrive in a clean economy. If properly executed, the Green Deal will institute a European first-mover advantage to significantly shape global environmental standards and drive EU companies to innovate and lead globally in "green finance", energy, transport, and engineering sectors.
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